QUESTION PERIOD — Treasury Board
Bilingual Proficiency Requirements
June 15, 2026
Leader, the President of the Treasury Board was unable to say a word in defence of his access to information reform. That’s serious enough, but it’s even worse if we stop to consider that the same minister is also mandated to enforce the Official Languages Act. However, he can’t speak a word of French. In the meantime, requests for documents in French are running into chronic delays. How can the government ensure equal access to information for our French-speaking citizens when the minister responsible is not even proficient in French and seems incapable of being accountable for his own management?
Senator Housakos, I think it is fair to say that the processing of access to information requests is independent of the minister’s ability to speak either official language. I’m quite sure that if we had a unilingual francophone minister, access to information requests in English would be treated the same. I have no reason to believe that the situation is any different because the minister cannot speak French.
I have had the opportunity to repeat this several times in response to Senator Aucoin’s questions on the matter, and I completely agree with the statement Senator Carignan made at the beginning of our work, but let me say it again. Francophones and anglophones have equal rights in Canada and must be treated equally, regardless of their mother tongue.
Leader, Minister Ali doesn’t understand this file in either English or French. He relies on the constant support of his colleague François-Philippe Champagne to come to his rescue in the House whenever he is asked questions on his own files. Does the Carney government realize that this lack of proficiency, combined with the minister’s unilingualism, sends the wrong message, specifically, that modernizing the Official Languages Act is not a priority for the Treasury Board?
As Government Representative in the Senate, I would remind senators that the government’s message is as follows: Both official languages must be given the same consideration, services must be provided to francophone minority communities on the same basis as they are provided in Quebec to the francophone majority, and both official languages must be treated equally by all sectors of government.
